Over at the Goodbye, Microsoft web site, Brad R. takes Ubuntu to task for abandoning dial-up modem users. Apparently Ubuntu no longer includes the GnomePPP dial-up package in the distribution, without which you can't get online via dial-up. It gets better: if you do have some way to connect, when you download something from the Ubuntu repository, the first thing Ubuntu does is update its 16+ megabyte repository index. Happy waiting! Brad concludes that "Ubuntu is for broadband users only."

Couldn't agree more. I still remember how painful was the Linux update process on a dialup. All repository goodies that you praise on a broadband working against you. There were some primitive tools to help but they were primitive and buggy, I ended up writing my own.